The present invention relates to grilling appliances such as used for grilling various types of food articles, e.g., chicken, beef, lamb, and the like.
The present invention is particularly applicable to grilling appliances of the type which include an impaling member mounted within a grilling compartment for impaling a food article to be grilled, and a circular array of electrical heaters surrounding the impaling member for heating the food article impaled thereon. This type of grilling appliance is illustrated, for example, in Austrian Patent No. 217592 of October 1961, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,575,196, 4,810,856, 4,715,273, 1,819,301 and 1,612,252. In such grilling appliances, the impaling member is generally rotated within the grilling compartment with respect to the electrical heaters to evenly grill the outer surface of the food article impaled on the impaling member.
Such grilling appliances, however, are relatively bulky and expensive to produce primarily because of the rotary drive for the impaling member. Such rotary drives generally include an electrical motor and a step-down transmission to rotate the impelling member at the desired slow speed.